CHRONICLES OF THE CARIBOO 5

make them ring true and sound convincing, as we shall see, and that
told, though it sometimes led him and his friends into losing ventures.
But he always played for big stakes, and when he won—which was
nearly always—he came out with enough to cover his mistakes.

So it is that here we find him and his partners making good wages
on a river bar with their rocker, saving gold without quicksilver that
any miner would know was fairly coarse for river dust, yet leaving
it without hesitation or regret, for the powerful lure of the unknown,
simply because he had confidence in the character of an Indian whom
he had never seen before. An Indian who didn’t even know gold by
name. But Dunlevey knew he must have seen it before when he
knew the metal again when he saw it and tested it with his knife.

There is dramatic force and interest in this episode that would
be hard to beat, or even equal, and that is why I have dealt in such
detail upon this phase of the story. For the whole story of the dis-
covery of the rich gold deposits of the Cariboo at that time is based
upon it and so too, incidentally, is the story of the change from a
Crown Colony to a Province of this mighty Dominion.

“From a tiny seed is the mighty fir tree sprung,
By a paltry deed from Fate is an Empire wrung!”

He had a better-than-average education but disliked bookkeeping
and the drudgery of office work, so he always had a clerk or book-
keeper—“‘secretary” he would be called these days. He was an in-
veterate gambler, as most miners must be whether they admit it or
not. He was what is known as a “gcod sport’ inasmuch as he was
a gocd loser and never a boastful winner; and finally he was of an
extremely bland and mild manner, yet had much force and determi-
nation of character for ail that. He never brawled, hence in those
rough days he had to have someone at hand to take care of the rough
stuff, and in Jim Seilers, one of his partners, he had such a one who
could—and did. He was built for it.

Jim Sellers was a big, brawny bruiser, but a good-natured one
withal. He had both power and speed and, like most men who have
those physical properties, who had brains and courage as well, he had
taken care to acquire skill to use them. He never started a quarrel
and usually his good-natured grin and: “Now don’t you start sompen
you cain’t stop” would prevent others from starting one either, his
appearance and reputation helping, of course. But when Dunlevey’s
suave diplomacy or Jim’s raillery failed of their object, as when a
bad loser at a card game returned for a showdown filled with Dutch
courage, Jim usually made a short job of slowing him down, and then
dressed his bruises for him. A formidable antagonist yet a reluctant
one, and that suited Dunlevey’s policy perfectly. An American, as
were all Dunlevey’s partners; from his speech I should say he came
from down Texas way. He was a good miner, boatman and woods-
man and a dead-shot with his Kentucky rifle and Colt powder-and-ball